NEUJOBS

Employment 2025: How multiple transitions will affect the
European labour market

The aim of the NEUJOBS project is to map the future of employment in Europe
for the coming decades. The single intellectual framework used is
that of a socio-ecological transition. This is defined as a drastic change in
the operations of society towards a more sustainable use of human capital and
natural resources.

The NEUJOBS project coordinates the efforts of an interdisciplinary
consortium with 23 partners in 29 Work packages. TML was responsible for WP 15
concerning the effect of the socio-ecological transition on the transport sector. TML
identified the following ‘megatrends in transport’:

After the proposed transport policies of eight EU countries (Austria,
Belgium, Germany, Spain, Finland, Bulgaria, Greece and Poland)were introduced into the EDIP
computable general equilibrium model, we demonstrated that a
combination of these policies can reduce emissions of overall greenhouse gases
and related pollutants by 1% –
8% compared to the status quo. This was mainly
caused by a 50% reduction in emissions from private transport. At the same time,
small net benefits in terms of employment are created. All the modelled
countries show net job creation.

After applying similar policies to develop job-multipliers of transport
policies, we can conclude that there is a big difference in potential job creation between
the richer and more developed western and northern EU countries, southern EU
countries (Spain, Greece, Portugal, and Italy) and eastern EU countries. This is
due to the relative labour intensity of the economy, wage rates and
current unemployment rates. In effect, job creation via energy policies is more
effective in the developing EU economies. Energy efficiency improvements and
transport subsidies deliver about three times more jobs per million euro in the
Eastern European countries.

Comparing a similar set of applied transport policies on the urban level, we
see that the policies that are most likely to achieve
the joint goal of
increasing sustainability as well as creating jobs are those that
promote
bicycling, public transit, and energy efficiency. To allow
cities more control over urban traffic, we advise the establishment of
road-charging zones or, alternatively, Low Emission Zones. Not only does this give
cities a flexible tool for redirecting traffic flows; congestion charges provide
the city with revenues that can be used for improving public transit or
can be redistributed for other social needs.